This
getting off to a quick start stuff? LSU can handle that if this is how it's
going to keep working out.

And
it turned out to be pretty beneficial to have a comfortable cushion to work
with against a feisty Auburn team at Alex Box Stadium on Saturday.

For
the second night in a row, LSU jumped in front of Auburn in the 1st
inning, and that was a solid foundation for a 5-1 victory.

AU
(15-8, 0-5 SEC) stayed in the thick of things, injecting some late drama, twice
sending the tying run to the plate in the last four innings. But junior Ryan Eades
and the three tried-and-true back-end relievers (Nick Rumbelow, Joey Bourgeois,
Chris Cotton) put out the fires to secure the series win with Sunday's game
still looming.

Mason KatzLSUSports.net

First
baseman Mason Katz ripped a two-out, 2-run double into the left-field corner in
the 1st inning to stake LSU (21-2, 4-1) to a lead it never
relinquished. Raph Rhymes and Alex Bregman drove in runs later to extend the
lead on a night when the offense squandered some chances to blow the game open.

That
didn't sting because Eades and the bullpen left Auburn frustrated in several
innings when the game could've changed on one swing. Instead, AU stranded eight
runners from the 5th-8th innings, six in scoring
position.

Eades
improved to 5-0 this season with a gritty 6.2-inning performance when he
scattered seven hits and took another progressive step by showing he could
navigate through trouble. In the 6th inning in particular, Eades
fell behind in counts several times and still managed to keep Auburn from
drawing any closer than four runs.

"I
got myself into some jams and they had runners in scoring position a couple of
times, but I was able to make some pitches and minimize the damage," Eades said
after matching his victory total from last season.

Ryan Eades: Improves to 5-0 this seasonLSUSports.net

"In
those situations, you kind of have to dig deep and see what you're made of, make
quality pitches, execute pitches and let your defense work behind you."

That
worked wonders, especially after LSU supplied Eades with a 5-0 cushion.

AU
starter Michael O'Neal hit Mark Laird with a pitch with one out in the 1st
and surrendered a solid single to Raph Rhymes to put runners on the
corners with two outs. Katz, who leads the SEC with 10 home runs and 36 RBIs,
worked the count to 3-and-1 and then poked the ball over third baseman Damek
Tomscha's head and all the way into the corner to send both runners home.

In
the 3rd inning, Laird and Alex Bregman began the at-bat with singles
and Rhymes popped a ball deep enough to right field for a sacrifice fly.

Then
in the 4th, Laird kick-started the inning with two outs when he
hustled out an infield single on what looked like a routine grounder to first
base, stole second and raced home on Bregman's base hit to shallow left field. Bregman
sprinted to second base on the throw home and that was large when Auburn second
baseman Jordan Ebert botched a hot shot off Rhymes' bat for an error and
Bregman scored easily.

LSU
coach Paul Mainieri marveled afterward at how Laird's blazing speed essentially
set up both of those runs and gave his team a 5-0 cushion.

LSU outfielder Mark Laird made a habit of touching the plate Saturday against Auburn, scoring three times in a 5-1 triumph.Hilary Scheinuk, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

"My
goal is just to get on base, whatever it takes," said Laird, who was 2-for-4
and scored 3 runs. "Because I know Bregman is on fire right now, and every game
he seems to be getting clutch hits. And then with Raph and Mason behind him, if
I just get on base, I know there's a good chance I'm getting in."

Eades
breezed through the first 4 innings, facing just one hitter over the minimum.
The only AU runners in those first four frames reached with two outs and Hunter
Kelley's single in the 3rd was the lone hit.

Facing
the five-run hole, Auburn finally got on the scoreboard the 5th inning.
Ryan Tella whacked a double and Tomschak blooped an RBI single to center field
off the handle to break up the shutout. Blake Austin lined another hit to left
field, but Eades buckled down and got the next three hitters out.

The
script was very similar in the Auburn 6th if not even more maddening.

With
one out, Cullen Wacker and Garrett Cooper singled, but Eades struck out Tella
and then got Austin -- AU's leading regular hitter at .328 coming into the game -- on a ground ball to third base with the bases loaded.

Dan
Glevenyak's double to start the 7th inning gave Auburn one more
chance to get to Eades, but he struck out Sam Gillikin, retired Kelley on a fly
ball to center field and then gave way to Rumbelow, who got Ebert on popup to second
base.

"We
kept the game close and that's what you have to do against good teams," Auburn coach
John
Pawlowski said. "I
thought we gave ourselves plenty of opportunities, we just weren't able to come
up with something. I was hoping someone could find a hole and we could score
some runs but it didn't happen. These guys keep battling hard and hopefully
tomorrow we will be able to get something going."

LSU
wasn't done frustrating the AU offense.

In
the 8th inning Bourgeois came on and allowed a pair of singles and a
one-out walk to load the bases, again with Austin at the dish. Instead of
allowing AU to stir up any momentum, though, Bourgeois coaxed Austin into a
made-to-order ground ball to Bregman at short that turned into a 6-4-3 double
play.

In
those four innings, Auburn was 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and
stranded eight runners. The LSU infield was a major deterrent, with third
baseman Christian Ibarra gobbling up several ground balls and the middle tandem
of Bregman and second baseman Jacoby Jones teaming up for the twin killing.

LSU third baseman Christian Ibarra had a dominant defensive night Saturday against Auburn, handlng six ground balls to key an error-free night for LSU in a 5-1 victory.Hilary Scheinuk, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

"We
got into some jams and made some plays on great defense," Katz said. "Ibarra
was phenomenal. Whenever our pitchers needed a double-play ball, they got them."

As
well as LSU played in the field and as gritty as the pitchers were, the offense
didn't fare much better than Auburn after the first 4 innings.

LSU
stranded 12 runners in all, seven in scoring position. After the two-run 4th
inning, when it looked like the floodgates might open, LSU was 0-for-5 with a
chance to pad the lead.

That
made the last several innings much tenser than they needed to be, especially
with Auburn scrapping and making things interesting. Mainieri joked about the
offensive problems afterward and managed to turn the futility into a positive.

"I
told the guys, 'I wish I was like you guys: 18-to22 years old, carefree, get to
play baseball, get a hit, get to make a pitch, go chase some girls, you know
have fun,' " Mainieri said. "I've got 30 years of experience, so I'm counting
how many batters until the tying run comes up to the plate right until the very
end of the game. I wish I could be more like them and not just worry all the
time.

"We
had a chance to break the game open. It's 5-1 we get runners on first and
second, we don't get a bunt down We need to do those things and then we break
the game open and you don't be on the edge of your seat until the end of the
game.

LSU coach Paul Mainieri: 'Given a choice, I'd rather have that then busting games open, but I wish once in a while weâd bust games open when we had a chance.'Hilary Scheinuk, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

"On
one hand, I'm really proud of our team because they show remarkable composure
and poise when things start to get kind of difficult and I think that's a
quality of a great team. Given a choice, I'd rather have that then busting games
open, but I wish once in a while we'd bust games open when we had a chance."

LSU
gets one more chance to do in the series, when the teams wrap it up at 1 p.m.
at the Box.

Sophomore
lefty Cody Glenn (3-1) will take the mound for LSU, looking to bounce back from
his first loss of the season last week at Mississippi State. Pawlowski said he
will likely send junior Will Kendall out for an abbreviated start. He is
recuperating from elbow reconstruction surgery and has logged only 4 innings
all season.